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Vegetable Soup

A hearty soup made with chicken, tomatoes, lima beans, corn, bacon, potatoes, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Vegetable Soup

Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Vegetable Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Combine chicken and water in a pot.

  2. Cook until the meat falls off the bone.

Build the soup

  1. Add salt, pepper, onion, tomatoes, lima beans, and diced potatoes.

  2. Cook slowly for 1½ hours.

  3. Fry bacon until crisp, then mince finely.

  4. Pour the bacon and grease into the soup mixture.

  5. Add corn and cook for an additional 10 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve with Virginia corn pones.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Lima beans + corntop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together222 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Chicken + beeftop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,148 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Corn + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together938 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Tomato + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,798 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main meat and flavor that the broth is built on.
Lima beans
Hold their shape during long simmering and add starchy body to the soup.
Potatoes
Break down slightly as they cook, thickening the broth and adding body.
Bacon
Its fat and crisped pieces add smoky, savory richness to the soup.
Corn
Adds sweetness and a tender bite to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Cook slowly for 1½ hours. A gentle simmer lets the meat and bones release flavor and gelatin while the vegetables soften without breaking apart. A hard boil makes the broth cloudy and can toughen the meat and beans.

Swap the lima beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, pepper, tomato, beef, onion, corn, potato):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Sesamefits better
  3. Peanutfits better
  4. Lima beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pepper, tomato, beef, onion, corn, potato. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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